Food products, such as pizza, are frequently prepared and cooked at a store location. The prepared food product is then delivered to a customer at a home or place of business.
A freshly cooked food product may be stored at the store location awaiting a delivery person's transportation of the food product to the customer. It is common to prepare pizza and store it in a cardboard box. The cardboard box is placed under a heat lamp awaiting pickup by a delivery person. The delivery person then stores the cardboard box in a thermally insulated carrying case for delivery to the consumer. Despite these methods, the product may lose heat during storage and transportation and the temperature of the product may decrease. If the product becomes too cool, it may become unacceptable to a customer. As a result, attention has been directed at techniques for keeping a food product warm after it has been cooked.
The prior art describes delivery apparatus that can be used to keep food items warm during transportation. For example the following U.S. Patents describe such prior art delivery apparatus: U.S. Pat. No. 5,999,699 to Hyatt; U.S. Pat. No. 5,932,129 to Hyatt; U.S. Pat. No. 5,892,202 to Baldwin et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,880,435 to Bostic; U.S. Pat. No. 5,884,006 to Frohlich et al.; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,750,962 to Hyatt.